Windows 10 ARM VM Install Fails with SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED

I am a developer who mostly works on Windows, and wanted to try the ARM version of Windows on my new MacBook Pro (M1). I downloaded the latest version from my VisualStudio subscription, which is labelled Windows 10 IoT Enterprise, version 21H1. The VM does boot, and does begin the installation process, but it dies very early in the copying files section with the above exception.

Hoping to be a happy Parallels customer, but the early returns are disappointing. Has your team been testing with this build?

 

Short answer: That version won't work. You'll have to download the latest Insider build here.
Longer answer in this thread.

 

Parallels only works with the ARM version of Windows 10, not the other enterprise versions.

You have to join the Windows Insider program and download the ARM specific version of Windows to get a successful install.

Go to insider.windows.comand register if you're not already registered. Then download Windows here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windowsinsiderpreviewARM64 and create a new VM.

 

Thanks. The build I was trying to install is an ARM build, but apparently too old. I thought it might have been too new, since it was released about a week ago, but apparently, it's from an older Windows build than the insiders edition. Learned some new things today.

 

Yeah, the Insider builds in the Dev Channel are far ahead of the released versions. They just removed Internet Explorer from the two newest builds and that won't happen for normal users before June 2022. It's confusing and I really hope MS will eventually change their policy and release Windows 10 on ARM to the general public.

 

Just goes to prove how fragmented the Arm ecosystem is - Arm as you may appreciate has so many variants. And support for Arm does not mean it will work on all these variants. Some others on this forum have issues with RHEL and SLES Arm variants because of page size issues.